


Waiting for Me Upstairs

by EndlessRain



Series: Waiting for Me Upstairs [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Hunter Retirement, M/M, Romance, flash backs, outside pov, story telling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 06:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EndlessRain/pseuds/EndlessRain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel just wants a normal, steady, job, that doesn't involve decapitating vampires or burning bones. So she gets a job at St. Thomas's Retirement Home, hoping for a pinch of normalcy. There she meets Dean Winchester, the youngest old man she's ever met, and quickly befriends him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting for Me Upstairs

“Okay and so after you go through reminding them of their mealtime, just go straight through the rounds a second time to give them their meds. Most of them have to take it before their meals anyway, so it’s just easier that way.” 

Rachel nodded. Seemed easy enough. “What I don’t get is why don’t I just give them their medicine while I’m reminding them that their food is on the way? Wouldn’t it be more efficient?” 

Her boss smiled at her, and she reminded herself that she was lucky enough to even have the job in the first place, and not to fuck it up by questioning authority. 

“That’s actually a great question. We always have all of the assistants go through twice, to make sure that all of the patients get some TLC. Part of it is that we want to make sure that we’re checking in on them as much as possible, but the other reason is that most of them don’t have any living friends or relatives, so you’ll be the most social interaction they get, most days. Just smile, be friendly, and make them feel at home. You’ll do fine.”

Rachel smiled, and went to get her cart. 

She could do this. She could have a stable, normal, job. 

***

The first room in her rounds was playing loud rock music that she could hear through the door. She smiled to herself. She recognized the music as something her dad had always listened to. Since when did the elderly blast music like they were fourteen years old? She took a deep breath and knocked. 

“What?” a very crabby voice called through the door. Oh God, please don’t let every old person in the home be rude. Rachel so did not want to go through that. 

Forcing a grin, she glanced at her chart and then asked through the door, “Um, Mr...Winchester? Just here to remind you that lunch is in an hour.” There was a large amount of grumbling and shuffling before the door was thrown open. 

Standing before her was, predictably, an old man. He had to be at least in his eighties. He was wearing an old pair of sweat pants, and a plain grey t-shirt. From what she had seen so far in her week long training, this was not the typical uniform of someone at the home. The elderly man stared at her irritably. “What? What did you say? Did you seriously think I could hear you through that damn door?” 

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t want to disturb you.” Rachel stammered. Shit. Her first interaction with someone living in the home and she’s already pissed him off. 

“Well, great job.” He congratulated. “Consider me disturbed, sweetheart.” 

“I’m sorry.” She repeated, not sure what else to say.

Mr. Winchester rolled his eyes, and stomped over to the old fashioned radio that had been blasting the rock music, and switched it off. He turned back to her, expectantly. 

“So…? You had something to say, or…? Are you here to give me my meds or what?”  
Rachel sighed.

“I’m here to remind you that lunch is in an hour. If you want lunch, you need to be down at the cafeteria by noon. If you forget to come down, we’ll send someone up to remind you. See you in a little bit.” Rachel prattled off her little speech by memory, not wanting to forget anything. They had told her training: speak loudly. Speak slowly. Short sentences. Be clear. Be friendly. Be warm. 

“Why the fuck are you talking like that?” He asked her, and Rachel practically choked.  
Okay, maybe she didn’t have a lot of experience with old people, but she didn’t expect him to talk like that. 

“Um, like what, Mr. Winchester? I’m just reminding you about lunch, remember?” She smiled helpfully. 

Also: give constant reminders. It’s okay if they forget what you’re talking about. It’s okay if they get lost in the conversation. That’s normal.

Mr. Winchester sighed. “God damn it. I am ninety-one years old, I understand what you’re saying. You don’t have to talk to me like I’m a friggin’ child.”

Embarrassed, Rachel smiled again. “I’ll be back in a little bit with your medicine, Mr. Winchester.”  
As she was leaving, she swore that Mr. Winchester was going to make a snarky response, but instead he just sighed, and sat down on his bed. 

When Rachel came back about half an hour later to give him his meds, the door was opened still, and Mr. Winchester was sitting on his bed still, holding a picture. The picture was small, and actually printed like a photograph, but she could see three men in the picture, grinning. 

“Are those your sons?” she asked. Ask them questions about their family. They love to talk about their family.

Mr. Winchester didn’t respond, eyes boring into the picture. 

She shifted awkwardly. “Your meds, Mr. Winchester.” 

Without looking up at her, he opened the drawer to the small nightstand next to him and stuffed the picture in. He turned to her and grinned. “Alright, dope me up, nurse!”

Rachel chuckled, and handed up two cups, one full of pills, the other with water. “You know, I’m not actually a nurse, I’m an assistant.”

“Whatever, you’re hot and you’re handing me pills. That makes you a nurse in my book.”

***

_“Dean, this is ridiculous. We have better things to do than go to the movies.” Sam chided, as  
Dean shrugged on his jacket._

_“Sam, we’re so close to getting the gates closed. We deserve a little break, and I want to see this movie! We’re going, and that’s that.”_

_“Dean, I have research to do.” Sam crossed his arms, and delivered his token bitch face._

_“’Kay, fine, me and Cas will go without you. C’mon Cas.” And with that, he headed out the door, without consulting the angel first. Castiel dutifully followed behind him._

_Halfway through the movie, Castiel noticed something._

_“Dean.” He whispered, in a voice that wasn’t really a whisper at all._

_“Hmm…?” His eyes were glued to the screen. He couldn’t remember the actor’s name, but this was the first time the actor who played Dr. Sexy was going to be in a major movie, and damnit, nothing was going to stop him from seeing the flick._

_“Is this ‘a date’?” Cas asked, air quotations and all.  
Dean jerked his head towards him. “What? No! W…what makes you ask that?”_

_“This movie is all about a couple and their relationship problems. Everyone around us is a couple.”_

_“So…?”_

_“So is this a date?” he inquired, genuinely confused. “I do not mind, I just want to know.”_  
Dean didn’t respond, only throwing his arm over Cas’ shoulders, and letting Cas lean into him.  


***

The next day when Rachel knocks on Mr. Winchester’s door, instead of rock music coming through the door, there was silence.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Mr. Winchester? Just a reminder that lunch is in an hour.”

No response. God damn it. If they don’t respond, she’s required to barge in and make sure they haven’t died in their sleep. The job is pretty fucking morbid, if you ask her. Almost as bad as her last job. 

Pushing her way through the door, she sucked in her breath as she saw Mr. Winchester curled up in his bed. Crap. She’d seen enough dead stuff in her life; she really didn’t want to see a dead old man on her second day of a real job. Dear God, please let him just be taking a nap.

“Mr. Winchester? Wake up, sir!” She was across the room and shaking him before she could even think about it. Mr. Winchester didn’t move. Shit. Shit. Fucking shit.

“Mr. Winchester! It’s almost time for lunch!” She was practically shouting. “Mr. Winchester!”  
Suddenly, he was moving. His body shifted and he was blinking up at her in confusion. “…Jo?”  
Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. She was pretty sure that if someone died on her second day, she would have just quit right there and gone back to her old life. She smiled at him warmly. 

“No Mr. Winchester. My name is Rachel. You’re at St. Thomas’s Retirement Home.”  
Mr. Winchester sat up and sighed. “Oh yeah. I’m old, I forgot. Sorry- you just uh, looked like someone from when I wasn’t a sack of dust. Are you here to give me my meds?”

“No Mr. Winchester, I’m here to remind you about lunch. I’ll be back in about half an hour to give you your medicine. See you then, sir.”

“Okay sweetie.” He replied, clearly annoyed, and then rolled back over in his bed.

When she came back with his meds, loud rock music was playing again. This time she could identify it as AC/DC. “Mr. Winchester, here’s your medicine.” She handed him the two cups, and he swallowed all of the pills in one swallow. 

“Hey, what did you say your name was, again?” he asked, handing the cups back.

“Rachel.”

“Rachel, you’re new here, huh? Probably your first week?”

“Second day, sir.” She glanced at her cart. She should probably should go, but to be honest, all of the other patients drooled and didn’t want to talk to her. 

“You should tell me your life story, one day.” He opened the drawer to his desk, and pulled out a bottle of whisky. “Bet it’s pretty interesting.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Mr. Winchester, you know I’m going to have to take that, right? No alcohol allowed on the premise.” 

He grinned, and Rachel wondered if he was this much of a charming asshole when he was her age. “Yeah, I guess you could say I’m kind of a bad boy.”

“Mr. Winchester, I think you’re a little too old to be hitting on me.” She pretended to be annoyed, but wasn’t try that hard to make it believable. 

She could see the sadness in his eyes, even if he was plastering up a grin. Being on the road for as long as she had, with the job she had, reading people had turned into an automatic survival skill, and she could see that Mr. Winchester was sad, and lonely, and in need of a friend about as much as she was. 

“Aren’t you a little young to be working at a retirement home? Shouldn’t you be out living your life at like, college or something? And quit with this ‘Mr. Winchester’ crap. Nobody has ever called me that in my life, and the minute I land in this dump, everyone starts calling me that. It’s ridiculous!”

Rachel laughed, and glanced at her chart. “Okay, well, it only has your last name on here, so what do I call you?”

He grinned again, and told her “You can call me anything you want, babe.”  
Rachel laughed again, and left to finish her rounds. It wasn’t until her shift was over that she remembered she hadn’t taken the whisky away from Mr. Winchester. 

***

Maybe it was because Rachel hadn’t made any friends since settling down from her old life or maybe it was because he was just really interesting, but after a while they settled into a pattern of become almost like friends.

Rachel would come into his room during her first round of checking in on everyone, banter with him for a while, before moving to the rest of rounds. Then during her second round, she’d bring him his medicine, and tales of all of the weird stuff she’d seen around with the other old folk during her rounds. He loved hearing her stories about the other patients. Rachel always let him make fun of all of the quote unquote “crazy geezers”, but she privately wondered if he just liked to make sure that he was still one of the more sane ones.  
Then, after going through her second round, she would come back to his room, and walk him to his lunch. 

One day, he started telling her about his life, instead of making fun of the other patients.

“God, I’ll never understand any of this modern tech everyone is so into,” he commented, nodding toward the computer that the secretary at registration was tapping at. 

“I mean not to sound like a ranting old man, but when I was your age tablets were a huge fucking deal. Now they probably look like a piece of shit to you, huh?” 

Rachel nodded. “Yeah, probably. My grandfather was really into his iPad. He used it up until the day he died. We tried so hard to get him to get something much more updated, but he flat out refused. Said that he didn’t need anything better.”

“Yeah, I was never a computer guy myself. That was always my brother’s gig. Heh, I knew a guy named Ash once. Dude could hack into any sort of database in ten minutes flat. We’re talking Pentagon stuff.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Best part of it was- son of a bitch wasn’t even impressed by himself. Went to MIT and acted as if it wasn’t a big deal.”

“So he was really modest?” Rachel asked, turning the corner to the cafeteria.

“Nah. I think he just didn’t realize that he was a genius. I mean, the only thing he was ever proud of in his life was his stupid ass mullet.” 

Rachel laughed, and didn’t bother to ask what a mullet was. “Well, here’s your table, Mr.  
Winchester. Enjoy lunch, I’ll see you later.”

He sighed and sat down. “Rachel, I’m pretty sure I told you to call me Dean. None of this ‘Mr. Winchester’ crap, okay?”

“Okay M-Dean.” She smiled at him.

Dean smiled back.

***

_Sam always seemed to notice it. The one time he said anything, however, he immediately regretted it._

_They were sitting in their crappy motel room, doing mindless research. That’s when he realized that Dean and Cas were sitting across the little kitchen table, drinking from the same beer._

_Once he realized that, it wasn’t long before he saw that Dean and Cas were playing footsie, like a couple of teenagers. Dean was stretching his legs out so that his feet would sit on top of Castiel’s and Cas would slide his feet out from underneath and kick him playfully._

_What the hell?_

_Later that day, when the three went out to eat, Sam noticed that Cas had actually ordered food. Since when did the angel eat anything? This concerned him until he noticed that Dean was eating off of Cas’ plate, as well as his own. The angel was eating some of the food as well, but only about one bite to every three from Dean. Whenever Dean would reach over and pop a French fry in his mouth from Cas’ plate, Cas would look over at him fondly._

_Later, when Sam had a minute alone with Dean, he asked him._

_“W-what do you mean?” Dean spluttered, completely alarmed._

_“You heard me. It just seems like there’s something there. Are you and Cas like, together?”_

_“I don’t believe this!” Dean was angrily gathering his stuff, heading towards the door of the motel room. He was probably about to head to a bar, to drink away his anger._

_“Dean, wait! Look man, I’m sorry. It was just an observation. I didn’t mean anything by it.”_

_“You just asked me if I was gay for my best friend. How is that an observation? Do we act like we’re gay? No. So we’re not.”_

_“Dean.” Sam raised his eyebrows. “C’mon. I know you better than anybody.”_

_Dean sighed, and set down the car keys. “Look dude. We’re not… dating.” He shuddered at the word. “But we’re not exactly not a thing. Hey, that’s a good word for it. We’re a thing.”_

_Sam was surprised by this revelation. “Oh. Okay. I’m uh, I’m happy for you Dean. For your thing with Cas.”_

_Dean smirked. “Don’t be a girl about it, Samantha.”_

_Sam never asked about it again._

***

It took about a month and half of their small friendship of the pair of them making fun of patients and Dean sharing tiny flecks of his life before they both realized that they had come from the same previous lifestyle. 

“Hold on, Rachel, what’s that around your neck?” he asked, grabbing her wrist when she turned to leave him at his lunch table. 

Rachel instinctively clutched the necklace. Usually she hid it underneath her clothing, but it had apparently slipped out over her shirt. She had given up the life, but hadn’t been able to bring herself to stop wearing her mother’s old pendant. 

Dean narrowed his eyes. “Wiccan, pagan, or witch?”

Okay. That wasn’t the reaction people normally gave her when they saw the necklace. Usually it was something along the lines of why are you wearing a pentagram or nice necklace not let me try and guess what you could be that would associate you with that.

“Er, none of the above?” Why was Dean so suspicious? Lots of people wore pentagrams, because they liked the look of it. For all he knew, she could just be another girl who thought it looked cute and bought it at the mall.

“Nice try, but that’s not your average necklace. You didn’t just get that at the mall. That’s old stuff. Pure iron, by the looks of it. And the writing on the edges is in Latin. Where’d you get that?”

Shit. Shit. Shitting shit. Rachel panicked and tried to think of a logical explanation as to why he’d care. Maybe he just liked old jewelry? Maybe he was a hunter? No way, hunters never live long enough to see a retirement. Rachel knew that, her mom had made damn sure she memorized that mantra.

“M-my mother gave it to me. It’s uh, and old family heirloom. Kind of a good luck charm?” It wasn’t a lie, at least. 

“Your mom a hunter?” He asked.

Rachel swallowed. Fuck. There was a reason that she got out of that life, and that was because she wanted to live her life. Now a demon, or a shape shifter, or a witch, or some other nasty thing had caught whiff of her after only a month in a real job. 

“A what?” She asked. “Dean… Mr. Winchester, please, I have to go do other jobs now. I have more patients to see to.” 

Dean grinned at her. “Good girl, trying to hide it. Don’t worry- I’m not whatever you think I probably am. Just one of the lucky ones who got out.”  
For whatever reason, Rachel decided to trust him. She sat down across from him at his table.

23

“What, no forced holy water? I don’t need to prove myself?”  
Rachel took a deep breath, and followed the only thing that had gotten her this far in life: logic. 

“No, I’m not. If you were a shape shifter, you wouldn’t be disguised as someone as old as you, there’s no reason to. Nothing to gain from it. Same goes for a demon possession. And witches never let themselves get that old looking.” She paused. “Basically, you’re too old.”

Dean burst out laughing, ancient laugh lines cutting into his face. He laughed for a good long while, and it warmed Rachel’s heart to see a true smile on the old man’s face, rather than a fake, flirtatious one, plastered on. 

He wiped his eyes. “Ahhh… Rachel. I haven’t laughed like that, in well, years.” Rachel was glad to hear that, but suddenly, Dean didn’t look as happy as he did before. His eyes glazed over, and stared past her, and she could tell that he was in the past. 

***

Once Rachel and Dean had discovered each other’s hunter pasts, the two spent more and more time together, desperate for someone who understood what they had gone through. Rachel had begun to meet him during her break time, and on days that she had off.

“No! I swear to God, it was a friggin’ nightmare! We had to look all over town for the remains!” Dean insisted, pouring himself another glass of whisky.

“Dean. What did I say about that?” Rachel admonished.

Dean rolled his eyes. “You’re not my mother, you know that, Rach? Geez. I’m old. I’m dying. Damn it all if I have to be sober for it.”

“Dean.” Rachel’s heart twisted. She hated when he talked about dying, which happened to be a lot.

“Hey. Don’t give me that sympathetic crap. I’m an old man; I’ve lived a long life. I’m ready to die, it’s okay.”

Rachel didn’t look at him.

“Rachel. For God’s sake. You’re a hunter. You’ve been around death plenty. Don’t act like it’s a huge deal.”

Rachel’s eyes darted up, and bored into his skull.

“I am not. Repeat: not. A hunter. Maybe I was a long time ago, but that was then.”

Dean raised his hands in retreat. “Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. But you know how it is. Once you’re in the life, you never leave. Hell, I haven’t ganked anything in years, but that doesn’t make me any less of a hunter.”

“I’m not a hunter.” She repeated, sternly.

“Okay, you’re not a hunter. Geez!” Dean laughed. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

“Dean. I did have to tell you twice.” 

Dean smiled at her sadly, and set his whisky glass down. “You are so much like my brother.”

Rachel was shocked by this revelation. As much as Dean loved to talk about his hunting days, she barely knew anything about the brother that he had most of his adventures with. Apart from the fact that his name was Sam, and that they were brothers, she didn’t know much else.

“Tell me about him.” 

And so he did. Even if Rachel had known previously that Dean didn’t have anyone else to talk to, she would have figured it out by then. Dean launched into about an hour long story about how he and his brother spent about a year trying to track down their dad, who was tracking the demon who killed their mother.

The thing about Dean Winchester, Rachel noticed, is that when he would talk about something, he wouldn’t talk about their personality or their physical attributes, but what they did. When he described someone from his past, he did so through stories. 

***

Then came the day where Dean wasn’t in the same year as everyone else.

She had made her two rounds, and had walked Dean to lunch with no problem. During the walk to lunch, he managed to fit in a small tale about the time that he and Sam fought a Shojo with their friend Garth, and they had to be drunk to catch it. It was a funny story, and Rachel laughed along with Dean as he described his skinny friend getting plastered after only one beer.  
Later, during her break, she decided to surprise Dean by bringing him an extra slice of pie that was left over from lunch. 

“Dean? I brought you something you might like…” Rachel pushed open his door, the formality of knocking long since gone. 

Dean turned to look at her, and squinted in confusion. He was standing in the middle of his room, lost. “Jo…? Where am I? What the hell is going on?”

Rachel sighed. She had been told by him multiple times that she bore a resemblance to his old friend Jo, who had died on a hunt. 

“No, Dean. It’s me, Rachel.” She set the plate of pie down on his desk, and walked up to him.

“Who the hell is Rachel?” Dean demanded, hand reaching behind him.

“Dean, I’m Rachel. I work here. And you don’t have your gun any more. And I doubt you have any holy water on you. Do you know where you are, Dean?”

“Listen sister, I don’t know who you think I am, and I don’t know what you think you did with my stuff, but you’re in serious trouble if you think you can get away with anything.” He braced his body for a fight, but Rachel only crossed her arms.

“Dean. What year is it? Do you know what year this is?”

“Geez, what is this, twenty questions?”

“Dean, what year is it?”

Dean felt around in his pockets. “2016. Where’s my phone?”

“Dean, I don’t think you have a phone. You probably just use the one here, right? Although I don’t know who you would call.”

Dean charged at her, seething, but she caught him by the shoulders, and whipped him around so that he faced the mirror hanging on his wall. 

“Dean, what year is it?” 

The look of realization on his face absolutely broke Rachel’s heart. He stared at himself, and the look of anger faded into one of sadness so quickly that she would have missed it in the blink of an eye. His hard, set face, softened and his angry scowl melted into a sad frown.

“Um… sixty-something?”

“Dean,” she whispered, “It’s 2070.”

“2070.” He repeated. “Sam is gone.” He brought his hand up to his face. 

“Sam is gone,” she confirmed.

“And Emily.”

Rachel remembered that Emily was the name of Sam’s wife, and nodded. “Emily too.”

“And-“his voice broke. “And Cas. Cas is gone, too. That son of a bitch.”

She didn’t know who Cas was, as Dean had never mentioned her before, but Rachel made the assumption that she was, and agreed. “She’s gone too.”

Dean turned to her, “Cas is a guy.” He snapped, defensively. 

“I’m sorry- I don’t think you’ve ever talked about him to me before.”

Dean glared at her. “Cas was my…my…” he trailed off, and looked down at his feet angrily. 

“Your what, Dean?”

“He was my…well he was mine, okay? And who the hell are you, anyway?”

Rachel smiled at him sadly. “I’m Rachel.”

Dean stared at her for a few moments, before he remembered, and within seconds he was flashing her his token grin. “Oh, that’s right. You knew I was just messing with you, right?” He settled down at his desk, and picked up his pie.

“Did I ever tell you the time I accidentally fathered an Amazon warrior?”

***

Rachel has always wondered about Dean’s love life. She knew that his brother Sam had settled down with Emily, but nothing of whether or not Dean settled down. In fact, if she thought about it, she actually didn’t know anything of his life in between being a hunter and being a patient at St. Thomas. 

One day, she cut him off halfway through one of his stories to ask.

“And anyway, I finally convinced Sammy to come help me out on the hunt, which Emily wasn’t too happy about, mostly because it was a few days away from their anniversary, but I knew I’d get him back in time-“

“What about your wife?” Rachel inquired.

“My what?” Dean asked, clearly annoyed that she interrupted him.

“Your wife. Were you ever married? Did she know you were a hunter? Did she go on hunts with you?” Rachel rested her chin in her hands, leaning forward.

“Why are you asking me about this? That’s not what I’m talking about. Anyways-“

“Dean, why don’t you ever talk about her? You were married weren’t you? What was her name? Or…his name?” She asked, remembering the day that he mentioned a man named Cas. 

Dean sighed, exasperated. “You’re such a chick.”

Rachel grinned at him. “I happen to be a chick. Story, Dean.”

Dean eyed her, but gave in, anyway. “Okay, yes. We weren’t ever married, not legally anyway, but keep in mind back in my day the two of us getting married was still considered taboo.”

“So it was a ‘he’? Cas, right?” 

“Yep. Funny, isn’t it? The lady killer I’d always been, and I ended up falling for a dude. And an angel, no less.” 

“Aw, he was your angel?” Rachel asked. She’d never heard Dean talk about anyone in his life that he was close to outside of hunting, besides Sam and Emily. To her, this was much more interesting than any of his hunting stories. She may be willing to sit through all of his hunting stories, despite the bad memories they bring up for her, but it was only because it made her happy to see Dean talking about something so passionately. If only she could ever get him to talk about other things in his life (and God, she hoped that Dean had more to his long life other than hunting).

Dean rolled his eyes. “No Rachel, like an actual angel. Don’t look so shocked, of course they’re real. Everything is real, you know that. So he was an angel, and I was a human, and I accidentally fell in love with the guy. There, happy? Can I get on with my story?”

Rachel was happy. That was probably the most she would get out of him for the day. “Yeah, Dean, finish your story.”

***  
 _The first time Dean and Castiel kissed, it was all thanks to Sam. Well, sort of._

_The guy had been sniffling for days, before finally coming down with the flu. Feeling guilty, he told Dean to check out a separate motel room, in order to not get him sick. So Dean worked the case by himself, while Sam laid in bed sick for three days._

_He worked the case by himself, that is, until Sam found out he was working the case, and got pissed. This led to a very huffy argument, which led to Cas coming down to help Dean with the case, so he didn’t work it alone._

_Which led to late-night researching in their motel room._

_Which led to Dean falling asleep on the couch._

_Which led to Castiel placing a blanket over the sleeping hunter._

_Which led to Dean waking up very suddenly, his face very close to the angel’s._

_“…Cas? What did we say about personal space, man?” Dean wasn’t sure why he still emphasized personal space, after all, he wasn’t so sure he didn’t want the angel in his space anymore._

_“You were asleep. I was attempting to make it more comfortable for you.”_

_“Oh.” Dean sat up. “Hey Cas?”_

_“Yes, Dean?”_

_Dean wasn’t sure what he wanted, so he stood up._

_“Um, thanks.” And before he could stop himself, he leaned in and planted a peck on the angel’s lips. It was a chaste kiss, but it left them both very embarrassed. Castiel had been on Earth long enough to understand the implications behind kissing._

_Cas stuttered, attempting to find an appropriate response. He leaned in for a second kiss, which Dean happily obliged to. This one was not nearly as innocent as the first.  
Dean broke away, and grinned. “Well, I’m beat. See you in the morning Cas.” _

_This led to many other stolen kisses between the two over the course of their friendship._

***

Rachel is desperate. For the past two weeks, Dean has talked about nothing to her other than his past hunts, and quizzing her on hunting stuff. The minute she walks into his room, his face brightens, and he’ll say “Hey, Rachel! How are you? Oh man, I just remembered last night that I’ve never even told you about the time Bobby put holy water in a sprinkler system, and set it off on like a dozen demons. A sprinkler system! Save that one for later, it could come in handy one day.”

A part of Rachel knows that Dean probably just doesn’t like talking about his personal life, but an even bigger part of her is worried that hunting is all that Dean had. Surely, he didn’t go straight from hunting as a kid, to hunting with his brother, to hunting by himself, to the retirement home, did he? 

Rachel wasn’t sure why she was so concerned about this, other than the fact that the idea was so sad. Who was this mysterious Cas person? Apart from that day where he got confused, and the time she had forcefully brought him up, Dean hadn’t spoken of him at all. 

But Dean hadn’t ever talked to her about anything other than his hunts, and some of the people he had met along the way. If Rachel thought about it, she actually couldn’t remember anyone Dean had ever brought up that wasn’t another hunter.

So Rachel was desperate for Dean to talk about something else, if only to assure her that yes, Dean did have a life outside of being a hunter, and that it was possible to leave the life.  
She had managed to be out of it for this long, but she needed to know if it was possible to stay out for good.

“Dean,” she asked him one day, “When did you stop being a hunter?”

Dean chuckled. “Rachel, no one ever stops being a hunter, I’ve told you that.”  
Rachel rolled her eyes at him. “Okay well, obviously you don’t go out on hunts now. So when did you um, retire? You haven’t actually been hunting your entire life, you must have at least taken like, breaks or something, right?”

Dean looked thoughtful for a minute, before saying, “Well. I did take a year off once, stayed with this girl Lisa and her kid. It was really nice. But y’know, the life. Can’t ever leave it.”  
Rachel stared at him. “You’ve literally been hunting for your entire life, apart from that one year? Going from motel to motel, killing things, up until you came here?”

Dean grinned. “Somebody had to. Don’t look so horrified, I saved a lot of people.”

“But…”

“And it’s not like I didn’t settle down somewhere once I got too old to be living out of motels. Bought myself a little apartment in Boise. Got a job at a car shop. It was nice and civilian. Of course, that was just to pay the bills ‘cause I was tired of credit card fraud. I still hunted every weekend and was home in time to be at the shop Monday morning.”  
Hope fluttered in Rachel’s chest. So it was possible to have a normalish life. 

“Did you live with Cas?” she asked him.

Rachel immediately regretted asking him that, because his face hardened and his eyes darkened, and he looked at the ground, his hands clenched into fists, and she knew his mind was in the past. 

His jaw clenched, and it took several moments before Dean finally said, “No. No, Cas was not living with me. I was all by myself, like a hunter should be.”

Rachel’s heart dropped into her stomach. “You… you never had anyone?”

Dean rolled his eyes, and held up his hands in the air. “What do you want me say, Rach? That I was raised as a hunter at the age four, and never really stopped? ‘Cause that’s the sorry truth. 

The only time I wasn’t a hunter was when I was in Hell, actual, literal Hell, and that was for four months here on Earth. Do you want me to tell you that at age thirty-five Cas and I woke up one morning and decided to give the apple pie life a try, and that we gave up hunting together? Do you want me say that we lived together and were happy and married? ‘Cause we weren’t. Cas left, and when I turned forty I decided that I was too lonely of the hunter life, so I moved a block away from my brother and his wife, just so I had family near. What the hell do you want from me Rachel?”

During the course of this speech, Dean had gotten up from his chair, and had started pacing around the room, slowly raising his voice to a yell. By the time he finished, he realized that he was out of breath, so he sat down on his bed.

Dean had never yelled at Rachel before. He’d never even said a harsh word to her before, except the time that she had confiscated his knife, and he had called her a bitch for it. Other than that, all of their conversations were light, a simple relationship of storyteller and listener. 

“Dean, I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried like that.” Rachel took a step towards the door, not sure if she should leave or not. Dean was sitting on his bed, his face in his hands. 

“Shit. No, Rachel, it’s fine. I can’t believe I just yelled at you like that.” He looked up at her, a warm, sad, smile forming. “You uh, you’re the only person I’ve got. You don’t have to listen to all of my stupid stories, and you do anyway. So… thanks. For that.”

Rachel is pretty sure that this is his version of an apology. “You’re welcome, Dean.”  
He looks up at her, and if Rachel saw tears welling in his eyes, she didn’t say anything.  
“Why don’t you come back tomorrow, and I’ll tell you something about my life that isn’t about a hunt? If you uh, if you still want to come tomorrow.” Dean looked sheepish, and Rachel almost had to laugh.

Almost.

“Dean, I have to come back. It’s my job, remember? But if you mean during my break, then yes, I’ll be here like always.”

“Good.” He said gruffly, “See you then.”

***

The next day Rachel practically skipped to Dean’s room, excited to hear a non-hunt related story. She leapt into his room, telling herself that it’s perfectly normal to be this excited over an old man’s stories. 

“Good morning Dean! Don’t forget that lunch is in an hour! See you t-what are you doing?”  
Dean was sitting on his bed, with a bunch of old photographs spread on his bed. They were vintage, actually printed on paper, and Rachel was surprised to see that they were in color.

“Just organizing some of my old pictures. Sammy never knew this, but sometimes I would take pictures of us and I… I dunno, I guess I just managed to make sure they stayed safe during our trips. Thought maybe you’d want to see them or something.”

Rachel walked over to the bed, and looked down at the pictures. There were probably only about a dozen of them, all printed out on little cards, in color.

“Wow, how old are these? They’re all in color!”

Dean stared up at her incredulously. “Just how old do you think I am, damn it! Just because I happened to have been born last century doesn’t mean that I was raised in the Stone Age. Colored pictures have been a thing since before I was born. Come on!” 

“Sorry! History’s not my strong suit.”

Dean muttered to himself about being old and not being from that long ago. “So, are we gonna have a cheesy moment and look at these pictures together, or what? It took me all morning to gather all my sentimental feelings, let’s get this show on the road!”

Rachel patted Dean on the shoulder. “Dean, you know I have to finish my rounds first. How about at lunch? I’ll eat it with you instead of in the staff lounge, and you can show me then.”

If Rachel didn’t know any better, she would say that Dean looked disappointed. “Yeah, sounds good. See you then.”

Rachel may or may not have sped through her rounds a little quicker than usual.

***  
 _Emily constantly worried about Dean. Even after he stopped hunting as much, (mostly because there wasn’t much left to hunt, according to him) and got an apartment across town from her and Sam, she still worried about him. He was alone, and so content with it, that it was very vexing for her._

_When she asked Sam why in all the years she had known him, he’d never had anyone, he shrugged it off._

_“Dean’s not one for relationships, Em. Not his thing.”_

_Emily thought on this for a moment. “But why? I’ve never even heard him talk about anybody. Does he really never date anyone, ever?”_

_Sam was silent for a moment before answering. “I don’t think so, babe. I think he’s too heartbroken.”_

_“Over Cas?”_

_“Yeah, over Cas.”_

***  
Dean smacked down the first picture on the table. “That’s Sammy’s wedding. I kinda took it from his wedding album. I mean, sure, the pictures were all over Facebook, but you never know where wifi is gonna be available, right?” Rachel chuckled at his old fashioned references. “And I wanted to be able to look at it whenever. So… yeah.”

Rachel picked up the picture. It featured a very tall man with long brown hair, standing with his bride, a woman who was much shorter, with red curly hair. Rachel had never seen two people happier in a picture before. Standing next to the newlyweds, were two other men. One of the men was wearing a tux, grinning from ear to ear. Rachel recognized it as Dean’s charming grin he always flashed her. He had his arm slung over the shoulder of a stoic man, clad in a long trench coat, who unlike the rest of the people in the picture, was staring into the camera. He didn’t look sad however, just very serious. 

Rachel pointed at each of the wedding goers. “Sam, Emily, and you.” She listed. Dean nodded. She pointed to the man in the trench coat. “Is that…Cas?” 

Dean nodded proudly. “That’s my angel. Son of a bitch couldn’t bother to smile in any of the pictures we took. We tried to get him to, but somehow we couldn’t capture it on film.” He took the picture from Rachel, and looked down at it fondly. 

“Sammy always told me that his wedding was the best day of his life. You would think stopping the Apocalypse, or when I was freed from Hell would be more important, but hey, whatever.” Rachel never understood a lot of the references Dean made to his past, like when he would mention fighting Lucifer, or stopping the Apocalypse, or hunting demons (no one had ever seen demons in about fifty years) but it left her with the feeling that Dean has done a lot more as hunter then burn a few bones.

“Wanna see another picture?” Dean asked her. She nodded eagerly. It was so wonderful to see that Dean did have things in his life outside of hunting. It let her hope that she could too.

He slapped down the next picture. It featured a young Dean, probably a few years younger than the one in the wedding picture, sitting at a table with an older man, with a scraggily beard and a dirty baseball cap. Dean had a plate full of pie sitting in front of him, and he was midway through placing a forkful of it in his mouth. He was laughing in the picture, and she could tell that he was at the person taking the picture. The older man was smiling too, but more with his eyes, subtly, the way a parent does when their kid is being funny.

Rachel smiled at the picture. “You always have loved pie, haven’t you?”  
Dean grinned. “Yep.”

“Who took the picture?”

“Cas. He wanted to learn how to use human technology, since all he knew how to use was his cell phone, so we got him a camera. He must have taken hundreds of pictures. Most of ‘em gone now, but I managed to save this one.”

“That’s adorable. How long were you guys together for?” Rachel passed back the picture.

Dean’s face stilled, and he looked down. “We uh, we hunted together for about ten years.”

Rachel wondered if this was him being subtle about their relationship, due to the homophobia from his generation. Nowadays, anyone just dated whoever they wanted, and gender wasn’t a big factor in it. Sure, people had their preferences, but it was never a big deal. Rachel knew though, that people in Dean’s time weren’t as accepting about something as simple as that. 

“That’s not what I meant, Dean.” 

“Well. If we’re being honest here, we were never actually a couple. We were just kind of… a thing.”

“A thing?”

“Yeah…” Dean looked sheepish. “I guess we just never got around to making it official or anything. We kind of just were.”

“Did you love him?”

“’Course. He was my angel.” Dean handed her another picture, featuring Cas and Sam standing next to what appeared to be a the world's largest ball of twine. “World’s largest ball of twine. We passed it so many times on the road, that Cas finally insisted we stop and visit it. He was always so interested in lame human stuff like that.”

Rachel still couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that Dean had known a real, live, angel, much less had been in love with one. Still, it made her feel good that Dean had had someone, even if they were only just ‘a thing’.

“Did he know that you loved him?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Man, you really like talking about this stuff.”

“Dean, did he?”

Dean set down the pile of photos and sighed. “You know Rachel, I only ever told him the one time. So yeah, he knew. I don’t know how he couldn’t have known, even if I hadn’t.”

“You must have been really in love with the guy.”

Dean grinned at her. “Sorry to disappoint Rach, but it’s not past tense. I’m afraid I’m not available.”

Rachel laughed, but then realized what Dean had just said. He still loved Cas, after all of these years? How long ago did Cas die? Can angels even die? Her heart ached for Dean, whose most prized possessions were pictures of people who had died years ago.

“Really? Even now?”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you’ve never been in love, am I right?”  
It was true, Rachel hadn’t. True, she’d had plenty of boyfriends and girlfriends in the past, but it’s not like hunters often meet the love of their lives on the road. 

“No.”

Dean smiled at her. “Well… when you do, you’ll understand. Cas and me… we just were. Are.”

“But… Cas? Isn’t he…?” she let the question linger in the air, not wanting to say it.

“Isn’t he what?”

“Isn’t Cas, like, didn’t he pass away?”

“‘Course not. I told you: he left. Still well and alive.” Dean handed her the next picture. “Those are Sammy’s kids. Dude managed to pop out five of them! That’s all of them when Ellen was born.”

Rachel picked up the picture. A very tired looking Emily was holding a small bundle in her arms in her hospital bed, with four kids all piled around her.

“That’s uh… let’s see here.” Dean said struggling to remember. “The eldest one right there, that’s Dean, named after yours truly. He’s probably about ten or eleven in that picture. Then the little girl next to him, that’s Cassie, our little angel. Then… those are the twins, Mary and Robert.”

“All named after your friends?”

“Heh, yeah. He pulled a Harry Potter, and named every single one of their kids after people who died along the way.” Rachel didn’t know that Dean was a fan of classic literature, but she understood the reference. ”Pretty sure all of their middle names are after people too, but I can’t really remember them right now.” 

“That’s nice. Hey, Dean?”

He handed her another picture, this time a picture of a much older Sam and Dean, standing with Sam’s family. Dean was wearing a cheesy party hat, and in background there was a banner that read ‘HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY DEAN’. 

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask one more question about Cas?”

“Shoot.”

“Okay well…” she wasn’t quite sure how to ask this. “Dean, where is Cas now? I mean… you said he’s still alive so…? Did you guys break up, or what happened?”

Dean laughed. “Rach, not everything is about relationships. And we weren’t ever a couple, remember? No, Cas leaving didn’t have much to do with me. Well I suppose it did, ‘cause I was the one who helped Kevin close the gates to Heaven, but you know.”

Rachel didn’t know.

“So he’s in Heaven now? Is he stuck there?”

Dean thought about this for a minute. “No… I wouldn’t say stuck. I mean, he’s an angel of Lord, not much is going to hold him back. Stuck isn’t the right word. It’s more like… he’s waiting.”

“For what?” Rachel knew that she had asked for only one more question about Cas, but she had to know. 

“Well, me of course!” He stuck his chest out proudly. “Dude’s waiting for me! What else would he do up there all day? I bet he’s getting our heaven all nice and prepared for us to share.”

Rachel was shocked by how sure Dean seemed.  
“How do you know that? How long has he even been up there?”

Dean didn’t even miss a beat. “Because, that’s what I have to believe, Rach. He’s my angel, and if I didn’t believe that he’s waiting for me up there, I would have given up a long time ago.” He said this so casually, as if he was telling her that it might rain today. 

Oh. Dean had to believe this, because otherwise-

Oh.

Rachel stood up, her lunch break almost over. “Well, I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t be waiting for you.” She didn’t know if this was true, but she hoped that it was. 

“He knows I’m coming soon, I pray to him every night so that he knows.”  
Rachel wasn’t even sure if she believed in angels, much less Heaven. 

For Dean’s sake, she hoped it was all real.

***

“Hey, how come I always tell you all of my shit, but we never get around to talking about you?” Dean and Rachel were sitting in the rec room of the retirement home, playing cards.

“What?”

“Well, I’m just thinking. I’ve told you the Winchester gospel. What’s your story? All I know is that you used to be a hunter, and now you’re not. I’m pretty sure I was the one who wanted the life story in the first place.”

Rachel laughed. “Well, not all of us have super interesting stories like you do.”

Dean scoffed in mock-embarrassment. “Oh… don’t flatter an old man. Nobody wants to hear my silly old stories. I’m just an old man babbling about the past.”

“Oh shut up! Are you kidding? My story is me and my mom hunting ghosts up until last year. Yours? You’ve been to Hell, Heaven, Purgatory, and everywhere else in between. You’ve fought gods and goddesses, monsters, even the freaking Devil! Not to mention having an epic romance with an angel! Way more interesting than me.”

Dean grinned. “Well, I am pretty awesome, when you put it that way. And I wouldn’t say me and Cas are an ‘epic romance’, sounds a little girly to me.” 

“Okay, whatever. Hey, tell me a story about him. Skip the lame hunting parts.”

“Hey! Hunting isn’t lame!” he protested, looking hurt.

“Dean.”

“Okay, okay! I’ll tell you a stupid chick flick story about me and Cas. Let me think…” He paused for a minute, before launching a story. 

This was when Rachel realized how painfully in love with Cas Dean was. He told a story about a hunt they did together, skipping the ‘lame parts’, and talking mostly about Cas. He talked about him as if has just talked to him yesterday, laughing at the silly human things Cas didn’t understand, fondly.

“Ugh, and you should have seen the guy around sex. Freaked him out. This one time, I took him to get a hooker…”

“You what? Why? I thought you were in love with him. Why would you buy him a hooker?”

“I dunno. When people want things… they lie. Whatever, it was so long ago. Anyways, so he goes back with the girl, and I hear screaming, and of course, I go running, thinking something’s wrong. No, it just turns out that he pissed off the hooker because he brought up her daddy issues.”

“What, no!” Rachel screeched, horrified.  
Rachel was content to sit there and listen to Dean’s stories about Cas all day.

***

Dean was grinning like an absolute idiot when Rachel came to see him a few mornings later.

“What got you all smiley?” She asked him, pleased to see her friend in a good mood.

“The kids are coming to see me! I haven’t seen them in years!”

“Your kids…?” Rachel was pretty sure that Dean didn’t ever have any children. From what she had figured, Dean never even had a long-term relationship in his long life. She had been under the impression that he just hunted until he settled down by himself in Boise, near his brother. 

“No, not _my_ kids. Never had any. Sam’s kids! Well, Sam’s grandkids. Although maybe they’ll bring their parents along, I dunno. Anyways, they call once or twice a year, and when I told them I’m dying soon, they decided to make a visit!”

Rachel stared at him. She couldn’t understand how he could possibly talk about his death so casually. She crossed the room to where he was sitting on his bed.

“Dean, you’re being silly. You’ll probably live another ten years, at least!”

Dean laughed. “Sweetheart, don’t be dumb. I know it’s happening soon. I’ve made my peace with it. Maybe then you can go off and make other friends besides me.”

Rachel swallowed thickly, a lump forming in her throat. “Dean… you can’t possibly know that.” 

Rachel had been working at St. Thomas for months, so patients telling her things that seemed a little odd or out of the ordinary was a daily thing. Mrs. Jefferson in room 4B had been calling her Elizabeth for weeks, despite the amount of times she had corrected her. Mr. Zelinski in room 1C had told her that he’s waiting for a package to arrive, and that it’ll come any day now. He’s also been telling her that every day since she started working there. Then there was Mrs. King, who was in a different decade every day. Out of all of the people in the home, she had never had anyone tell her that they were going to die soon.

He shook his head. “I do. I know I am. It’s okay, Cas told me.”

She blinked at him. “Cas…told…you…?” It was hard to get the words out. 

“Sure did. Son of a bitch visited me in a dream last night to tell me that, so when my niece called me this morning, I made sure to let her know. Anyways, so Sam’s grandkids are coming next week to visit their crazy great-uncle Dean, before he kicks the bucket. I should be pretty pissed that they waited this long to visit, but I’m not.”

“Dean. What do you mean ‘Cas visited you in a dream’? I thought he was stuck in heaven or something?” Rachel was thoroughly freaked out at this point. She still wasn’t even sure that she believed in angels or heaven, but Dean was pretty damn sure of it. 

“Well, I guess he found a way to get the message through. It was really good to see the guy. Even had the courtesy to let me be young in the dream with ‘em. So. I’m dying soon, and I’ll get to be with him. It’s about time, too!”  
Rachel felt a little bit dizzy. She pulled out the chair from his desk, and sat down. 

“You okay, kid?”

Rachel forced a smile. “Of course. I’m glad you get to be with Cas.”

Even if she wasn’t sure she believed in it all yet.

***  
 _“Dean.” Cas said, looking across at his friend at the diner. Sam was out with his new lady friend, Emily, leaving the two to themselves. Dean suggested they grab a burger, and of course, they did._

_“Yeah, Cas?” Dean reached across the table and grabbed a French fry._

_“Am I your boyfriend?” He asked gravelly.  
Dean chocked on his French fry. “I-um. No. What made you ask that?”_

_“You kissed me. I kissed you back. It’s happened several times, actually, and I quite liked it. That man a few weeks ago thought we were together. And when that woman yesterday was flirtatious with you, you told her that you were 'not available'." Cas paused, looking worried. "Sam said I was your boyfriend, although I think he may have been joking. Am I?”_

_Dean stared at him for a moment, his heart pounding. Fuck. Why did Sammy feel the need to butt in all of the time?_

_“Uh, no Cas. You’re not. Not exactly, no.”_

_Despite his expression being almost comically stoic, his disappointment couldn't be hidden from Dean._

_“Oh. I see.”_

_Dean went to take another bite of his burger, but one look at the furrowed eyebrows on his friend, and he sighed, tossed the burger back down on the plate. He stood up, and sat down onto Cas’ side of the booth._

_Cas automatically leaned into Dean, and Dean took his hand under the table._

_“Look, dude. We’re not normal people. Hell, you’re not even a human. And with all of this shit we’re always dealing with… we just can’t, you know?”_

_“We can’t be together because I'm not human?” Cas looked so sad and troubled that Dean wanted to kiss him right there in the diner. Instead he opted to squeeze his hand._

_“That’s not it at all dude.” Dean told him, grabbing his plate and sliding it across the table so he could reach it. He spend the rest of the meal on Cas’s side of the table, with one hand on his burger, and the other sitting in Cas’ lap, holding his hand. He didn’t even correct the waitress when she commented on how cute they were._

***

The next week, on the way to lunch, Dean told her, “My family is coming over today. You should come meet them!”

Rachel shook her head, not wanting to intrude. “I’m sure they’re really great, but I don’t want to get up in your family business. 

“What? That’s crazy! At least come meet the kids! Ellen’s son is coming with his husband and their daughter, and I think Cassie and Dean are going to try and come with their grandkids. You gotta.” He pleaded with her.

“Maybe I’ll stop by, if I have time.”

Rachel took over someone else’s shift that had went home sick that day, and pretended that it wasn’t an excuse to not see Dean with his family. 

***

Rachel started to eat lunch with Dean every day, after noticing that he never ate lunch with any of the other patients. It wasn’t even when her lunch break was, and she was supposed to be walking around, making sure the patients were alright, but somehow she managed to be able to spend the hour with Dean, without getting into any trouble.

“So,” he said casually, spooning soup into his mouth. “Today’s the day.”

“What is?” She asked, looking through some paperwork.

“Today is when I meet Cas again.” He told her proudly.  
Rachel’s heart stopped. “Dean… like… in a dream?” She hoped and prayed that that’s what he had meant. Oh God, please don’t let that be it. 

“’Course not. I’ve already talked to him about it. He said it’s today. Which is good, because I’m tired.”

Her chest clenched, and she took a deep breath. She tried to say something, but words couldn’t come.

“Oh, don’t look so sad. We both knew that this was coming.”

“But…” Rachel was at a loss. How could she convince him otherwise? Dean had no way of knowing that this was it, could he?

“But what? And don’t try to tell me it won’t happen today, because I know that it will. And I’ve accepted that. Now you need to. And for Christ’s sake, make sure they freakin’ cremate me. I have zero plans to end up haunting this place, but I want some sort of a hunter’s funeral. Now, I know you can’t exactly take my body and go burn it in the woods, but that’s what I want, is to be burned. Just make sure that happens.”

Rachel was staring at him. “But… Dean I-I…” 

“What? Spit it out!”

“I want to hear some more stories first,” she lied.  
Dean grinned his token Winchester smile. “I spoil you, you know. I assume you don’t want one of my awesome hunt stories?”

“Not really,” She laughed.

He sighed, but it was friendly. “Yeah, okay. One more about Cas.”

***

_They did it, the gates to Hell finally closed, and every demonic creature sucked up inside. The world was rid of all of it. Sam, Dean, and Castiel all leaned against the side of the Impala, looking down at the giant crater in the Earth they had created._

_“Wow. So… we’re done. We did it.” Sam said in awe, staring down at the empty land._

_Dean stayed silent. He felt Cas’s hand slip into his, and he squeezed it. Sam pretended not to notice._

_“I believe we must continue ‘the family business’.”Castiel declared. “There are still many things out there to hunt, and we should go gank them.”_

_Dean laughed, and took his hand from Cas to clap him on the shoulder. “Okay, buddy. But first, let’s go get a burger._

***

When Rachel came in to visit Dean for her break, he was laying in his bed, smiling.

“Hey, kid.”

“Hey, Dean.”  
She pulled up a chair to her friend’s bed, and sat down. 

“So… today’s it, then? Last day on Earth?” 

Dean shook his head. “Last hour. It’s happening soon, I can tell.”

Rachel’s heart dropped. “Do you feel okay? Dean, what’s wrong?” She instinctively reached over and took his pulse. 

“No, I’m fine. Although I did get a headache a few minutes ago. That’s probably the start of it.”

Rachel leapt out of her chair, and reached for the button to call a nurse. Dean shook his head at her. “Stop it, there’s no use. I don’t want to spend my last hour with doctors and nurses trying to keep this old heart beating. No thanks.”

Against her better judgment, Rachel sat down again. “Do you… do you have any last requests?”

He smiled at her. “Well, I did get two slices of pie at lunch. That was nice. Oh! I know what you can do. Go pop in my Van Halen tape into the boom box. That sounds nice.”

It took several minutes of instruction, and much confusion, before Panama was blasting through the tape player. Sitting back down, she noticed Dean’s face was slack.

“Dean? Dean? Are you okay?” He managed to shake his head, and even though he told her not to, she called the doctors. 

She was shoved out of the room, she could hear the nurse asking him to smile, and although only half of his face could force the muscles upwards, she swore that was the happiest she had ever seen him.

Dean died forty minutes later. 

***

_Before he left, he had to kiss Dean one last time; he didn’t care if everyone was around to see. He could already feel his Grace being dragged upwards, and it was physically paining him to stay down as long as he had._

_He felt Dean’s soft lips against his, and he smiled into the kiss._

_“Cas, what the hell?” Dean looked upset, because he knew._

_“I have to go now. I’m being called back up to Heaven.”_

_“What? I thought you were mostly human, now? You can’t even freakin’ fly, Cas!” Dean shouted, looking horrified at the light that was surrounding him._

_Cas smiled broadly. “My Father wants me anyway. He’s calling me back up. He’s calling all of the angels back, before they get stuck down here, forever.”_

_Dean felt the tears sting his eyes, and he gripped Cas’ arms. “Does this mean I’ll never see you again? That’s it?” The light that was surrounding the angel burned under his touch._

_Castiel shook his head. “No Dean, we’ll meet again, just not for a long time. Well, long in your perspective. I’ll be up in Heaven, waiting. For you.”_

_The tears were spilling down Dean’s face. “God damn it Cas, you can’t just leave us. …you can’t just leave me!” He was becoming hard to look at, but Dean couldn’t look away._

_The angel of the Lord took Dean’s hands in his, and placed a kiss to his forehead._

_“The fighting is over, for now. My brothers and sisters and I, we’re no longer soldiers. We’re being called to Paradise.”_

_Dean dropped Cas’s hands. “So fucking take me with you!” He demanded._

_Castiel smiled again. “Dean Winchester. The Righteous Man. What would you do up there?”  
“I would be with you.”_

_He shook his head again. “I’m sorry, Dean. It doesn’t work like that. Your time will come, in due time, but until then, there is work to be done here. Saving people, hunting things.” He quoted at him._

_Dean all but whispered, “I love you Cas.”_

_Castiel practically beamed at this. “And I love you too, Dean. I’ll see you again.”_

_His Grace was practically screaming at him, pulling him to ascend. He pulled kiss into one more, long, burning kiss, before disappearing with a burst of light.  
Immediately, Sam and Emily ran up to him. _

_“Dean, are you okay?” Sam thought it was a stupid question to ask his brother, of course he wasn’t okay, but he asked anyway.  
Dean turned and smiled a sad, sad, smile at him. “Yeah, Sammy, I’m okay. Cas is gonna wait for me upstairs.” _

__

***

Later that night, Rachel was visited in her dream by the angel Castiel.

She was at the park with her mother, swinging on the swing sets, when notices a very serious man in a trench coat next to her. At first, she ignores him, and asks her mother to push her higher on the swing.

“Rachel.” The man says, “This is a dream.”

Her mother disappeared, and she stopped swinging. “I know.” She sighed, “I just wanted to pretend that it wasn’t, for a little bit longer.”

“I will leave soon, and leave you to your dream.”

She hopped off of the swing, and the dream shifted, to the cafeteria at St. Thomas. They were sitting at Dean’s regular table. “You're Cas.” She stated. 

He nodded. “I’ve come to thank you.”

Rachel was bemused. “Thank me? What for?”

“For watching over Dean Winchester. You were with him in his last hour alive. You were a friend to him, and for that, I thank you.”

Rachel didn’t want to ask. Oh God, she wanted to know, but she didn’t want to ask, because the answer scared her. She did it anyway.

“Is… is Dean with you now? I mean, is he up in Heaven with you?”

Cas smiled at her. “See, you’re a true friend. The first time you meet an angel and your only concern is not about yourself, but about your friend. It’s very admirable.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. Yeah, yeah, she’s a great friend. Whatever. “Answer the question, Cas. I need to know if he’s okay.”

“Dean is in his heaven, and as my reward, I am aloud to spend eternity with him in it.”  
Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. “So he’s okay?” 

“Of course. And now, Rachel, I would like to reward you for your kindness towards Dean.”

“Reward? What kind of reward?” Rachel was annoyed. She never befriended Dean for any sort of reward, and the idea that some angel was trying to pay her for it disgusted her.

“I am not paying you for being his friend. I simply want to give you a gift, as a thank you for taking care of him. He was very lonely at the end of his life, with his brother and all of his friends already passed away. I am thankful that you were there for him.”

Rachel was surprised at first that he had known her thoughts, but then she remembered that she was dreaming, and that he was an angel, and that she had experienced much stranger in her life than that.

“I have been watching over you, as well, knowing that you would eventually befriend Dean. I have seen the horrible things that you have been through, as a hunter. I can offer to erase the more painful memories, if you would like.”

Rachel thought about this. What would be erased? Would everything from her life be erased, or just the especially painful moments? Would her father’s death be erased? Would her sister’s? 

Rachel could think of several dozen cases that she had taken on that she wouldn’t mind never thinking about again. Did she really want that? Would other memories replace them, or would she just have holes in her mind?

No, she didn’t want this, she decided. Her memories are what made her, her, and she wanted to keep them, despite the pain that they caused. 

Cas nodded. “I understand. I will find a way to repay you in a different way. Farewell, Rachel.”

“Wait!” She found herself stopping the angel.

“Yes?”

“Is Dean… is he happy, up there?” Dean had told her of the first time that he had visited Heaven, and how much he had hated it.

“Yes, I believe so. We have each other, now.”

“Are you… are you guys _together_ now?”

Cas chuckled at her. “Dean told me that you were very invested in our relationship. Yes Rachel,  
we are together now, in the romantic sense. Although he never really said so, we were also together on Earth. It was never talked about much, but we were.”

“So you love him, too?”

Cas nodded very seriously, but his eyes shone. “There is no one I have ever loved more.”

Rachel felt better. “Good, that’s what’s important to me. Thank you Cas.”

A few weeks later, she discovered that she had won the lottery, without ever buying a ticket. She also discovered that she also had won a trip on a cruise, and a lifetime supply of pie.

“Thanks, guys,” she muttered, looking at the ceiling, still annoyed that somehow they had given her a reward. 

She still may not be 100% on the whole God and Heaven and angels thing, but she knew that Dean and Cas were together and happy, and that’s what she did believe in.

**Author's Note:**

> Just because I think the idea of Sam "pulling a Harry Potter" and naming all of his kids after friends who have died is really funny, here is the full names of all of his kids:  
> Ellen Linda Winchester  
> Mary Jo Winchester  
> Robert Jonathan Winchester  
> Dean Gabriel Winchester  
> and Cassandra (Cassie) Winchester (because I feel like eventually Emily would put her foot down, and insist on a kid not named after a dead person, so they named her half after Castiel)
> 
> Also, just to clear things up: Sam and his wife Emily died of natural causes, at an old age. It wasn't mentioned in the fic, but I just wanted to make sure that that was clear.


End file.
